As news of that lawsuit spread, other family members began questioning the terms of the deeds and filed other suits that were combined into the single court case now being heard in Brownsville.
Under terms of the deed, these papers will not be made public until 2007.
But the university is now picking and poking at the wonderful gift it was given, most recently by trying to clarify in court the terms of the deed, which have not presented any difficulties of understanding up till now.
There were conditions of confidentiality and "mutual non-disparagement" on the settlement and Seven said it is "entitled to withhold payment for noncompliance" with the terms of the deed.
Under the terms of its deed (Trinity gave the property to the city in a land exchange in 1891) if the land is sold, it must be replaced with similar property.
"It would be a tremendous disservice to our veterans and would violate the terms of the 1888 deed" that conveyed the property to the government, the letter said.
At that moment, the diocese contends, ownership of Maycroft reverted back to the diocese under the terms of the original deed, which granted ownership only as long as the nuns used Maycroft as its mother house.
He goes on to claim: "It was evident from the purported amendment of the trust deed that the applicants had clandestinely and with the assistance of Mr Ayob sought to secure control of the Mandela Trust, contrary not only to the wishes of Mr Mandela, but also to the terms of the trust deed".
The fight over the future of the Warburg Institute came to a climax in the past few months, but it started seven years ago, when the Warburg Institute and then the University of London began to seek legal counsel in order to clarify the terms of the trust deed that, in 1944, as the Second World War raged, had brought the institute into the university.
The protesters are suspicious of a legal action launched by the university – the result is due in the autumn – seeking to clarify the terms of a trust deed signed in 1944 which committed it to caring for the collection "in perpetuity".
